


"I’m rather good at diagnosing pathologies from palm reading, myself,” Harding says.

by thetalkingcrocus



Category: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Foreshadowing, M/M, Palm Reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 17:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetalkingcrocus/pseuds/thetalkingcrocus
Summary: Some insight into Harding's carnival contribution.





	"I’m rather good at diagnosing pathologies from palm reading, myself,” Harding says.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr August 4 2013.

They hadn’t gotten their carnival. They’d known they wouldn’t, really, as soon as they shot it down. Most of them never thought anything of it again. Harding certainly wouldn’t have, had Mack not come up to where he had been sitting, reading an outdated magazine, wishing desperately that they’d get some new approved reading material soon.

 

“So you can read palms, Harding?” Mack had said, slumping down magnificently in the seat beside him as the smaller man glanced up from his reading. He placed it on the table behind him and folded his own hands in front of him for an instant before they unwound, emphasizing his speech.

 

“Not read, per se. Diagnose. It’s much more scientific, my friend, and illnesses can quite often be discerned form the state of the fingernails, the curve of the fingers.”

 

“Don’t talk bull with me, Harding. Can you read palms? The fun way, not this illness diagnosing shit.”

 

Harding sighed, a long suffering sigh, ran dainty fingers through his hair, and turned so he was facing the redheaded man. “I may have come across some of the less scientific methods in my perusal, yes.”

 

McMurphy’s grin was nearly blinding as he extended one big, scarred hand, palm up, for Harding to examine. Harding’s lithe fingers hovered as if reluctant to touch, and when he finally ran a gentle index finger along the crease of the palm, the contact was cool and almost reassuring in a way.

 

“Let’s see,” Harding murmured, seeming to focus fairly intently on the palm of his friend’s hand. Everyone else had stayed in bed, though Turkle didn’t care too much if they were wandering around after hours, not the Acutes, as long as they didn’t get up to any trouble. The lights were dim, making everything seem more mystic. “Your head line is solid, which doesn’t surprise me seeing as you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Your hand shape is sturdy- earth, were we to give a name to it, but that’s not important. This isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t know,” Harding insisted, looking up at his friend and apparent client bemusedly. McMurphy shrugged and motioned for him to go on. “Your life line is short. That’s odd- it seems like it would look more natural had it curved all the way to here,” cool fingers walking across his palm. Mack suppressed a shiver. “You don’t have a fate line. Hmm. Not unusual… and your heart line,” Harding smiled, an honest, genuine smile.

 

“What is it?” McMurpny asked, and the smile got smaller, sadder.

 

“It’s crooked. Like mine. Broken, jagged,” Harding began to talk with his hands, “it doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” a blush rose in his cheeks, “but uh- it’s certainly,” he tucked his hands away, under his knees, “interesting, is all.”

 

“Let me see,” McMurphy demanded, even as he grabbed Harding’s slim wrist in his catcher’s mitt of a hand. Harding obliged, flipping his hand with it’s long, slim fingers over, so that his palm was exposed. McMurphy didn’t let go of his wrist, but brought his other hand, the one Harding had read up for comparison. “Well, would you look at that,” he said, his voice unusually soft. “We match,” he said with an almost boyish grin and then, it happened suddenly and in slow motion, achingly slowly and yet all at once, McMurphy leaned in and kissed him.

 

It was not a dirty kiss, but it was not chaste either. It was soft and rough, a mixture of the two men. It was pleasant. Sweet.

 

When they broke apart, Mack murmured a quiet, “I never bought into that hooey anyways.” Harding nodded his agreement. They kissed again and again, because, Dale was trying hard to learn, sometimes there were more important things than talking.

 

Harding awoke the next morning with a vague sense of impending doom and remembrance of the glorious sensation of his finger on Mack’s abruptly halting lifeline.

 

He shrugged it off when Mack threw a more-than-amiable hand around his shoulders.

 

He didn’t believe in that hooey. 


End file.
